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Vorasek Cd Release Party

Brandees never knew what hit it as the venue played host to Vorasek cd release party for “Hold On”. I am pretty sure Brandees has never had a show and probably will not have a show that intense again. Even the volume of the night surprised me as well I didn’t think they would have had the volume up as much as they did, I know I left with ringing ears by the end of the night.

Local band The Method started off the night on a slighter lighter note than what was to come later on in the night. Their sound is a collection of 90’s alternative mixed with rock and what we call alternative nowadays. Once they hit their second song the sound of 90’s alternative was easy to pick out as the opening riff just screamed of Nirvana, which I am pretty sure other people in the audience picked up as well. Adam’s arrangement of pedals spelled out their classic rock sound with a pedal which I see often but seldom used Cry Baby. Nothing really adds a noticeable effect as the Cry Baby pedal does, it may not have been used often but when it was used the effect sounded great. The vocal end of their performance was done by Dave who did a great job of working with the microphone, by moving back during a power chord or moving closer for the quieter vocal parts in the songs. As well as being on lead vocals he played an acoustic guitar as well which added a little extra to the guitar arrangements in the songs. One song where the acoustic and the electric combined really well was their cover of All Along The Watchtower, which played near the ending of their set.While playing host to the opening slot in the night I thought they did a good job in setting the night off by playing their own songs instead of a list entirely made up of cover songs.

Next up was Dangie this was the first time that I actually got to take in an entire set by Dangie. Dangie’s set up was kept nice and simple using a microphone on a stand and one Mic to walk around with; he hooked up a small mp3 player which he plugged in at the front of the stage as his backing music. The backing music which he was sampling throughout his performance was mixed together strongly. There were a few noticeable tracks mixed in from the early and mid 90’s but one of my favourite unmistakable tracks mixed in was the Mario Bros track, there was a good admirable applause after the Mario Bros track played. There were a few lyrics which really stuck out in his set but nothing else matched to the ending lyric to one song which was simply Macho Man, which got a good applause from the audience. It didn’t take long before a few people hit the dance floor probably about the second song people made their way to the front and side of the stage. One other detail that I definitely cannot forget to mention is the timing with Dangie has with his performance; he pretty well has the timing down pat with his stage moves in regards to the tracks. My favourite song of his set was his opening song where the song spelled out what Dangie is all about, I am hoping to get a few lyrics posted in the next day or two and share them.

Following Dangie was The Fix Up, they brought the true old sounds of Punk along with them on stage. It didn’t take long for the mosh pit to start up and people ending up on the stage. This is where Brandees stage really started to feel the effect of what was about to come for the rest of the night. The volume also started to get turned up a few decibels. The mosh pit started to get a little out of hand quickly to the point where Patrick from Vorasek had to intervene a little bit and tell people to calm it down a little but that only lasted for a song or two. For playing a forty five minute set The Fix Up crammed a crap load of songs into their set. One item which I brought out of their performance was how audible their vocals were throughout their set. Their timing was moderately not too bad, the dead air during songs was a little long a couple of times but they were quickly heckled by the audience with “Play a Fucking Song”. They set the stage perfectly for Vorasek to take the stage to.

This was the most electric show that I have seen Vorasek put on to date, I’m pretty sure this is the third time that I have watched the band play now and the second time with the full band as they have now. I was blown away by how far they have come in such a short period of time, Patrick the perfect front man for the band. He knows how to feed off the audience and how to play around with the audience as well. While filling in a few voids left by the guitars he was quick to fill in the voids with hand claps or pulling off a few moves on stage. The addition of the second guitarist “Jeebs” has really let their music grow and has created a better sound for the band, the extra lead guitar riffs and licks that are thrown in now are an absolute now that I have heard them live. Patrick also shared the lead vocals with the Ted the bassist for Vorasek. Watching the guys play live I am pretty sure that it looked as if Ted was pumped up the most to play the show, he really looked surprised at the start of their set by how many people had crammed their way to the front of the stage. For their set list of their set they played the new album in its entirety, with the addition of a song from their next album as well. After watching Vorasek perform the album live and listening to the album, I found myself thinking that they need to record a live version of the album as well and try to pull in the energy of the live performance. Especially around the halfway mark of their set when the audience was ending up on the stage and taking out the microphones, with no one to slow down or tame the crowd they continued to tear up the front of the stage all the way back to the bar. When Vorasek finished their set they were not allowed to leave the stage without playing one more song and the audience was going to make sure that they were going to get one more song. The looks on Vorasek’s faces after people were yelling for more was classic it was a mixture of surprise and the fact they were getting called out for more. They didn’t disappoint and this is when they played us a new song from their next album. To finish off the night Patrick put his back to the audience and leaned back and fell out into the crowd which held him up and allowed Patrick to play out in the crowd.